The present invention relates to a cooking utensil comprising a receptacle and a removable handle.
Such utensils are generally pans or frying pans and the removable handle makes it possible for them to be stored and put into a dishwasher while taking up less room.
Such utensils have a housing on their side wall or on a peripheral rim of the side wall for the purpose of receiving one end of the removable handle. A spring system in this end of the handle makes it possible to secure the handle in reliable manner to the receptacle, and it is necessary to apply voluntary pressure on a portion of the system in order to be able to release the handle.
For safety reasons that type of removable handle is relatively sophisticated and thus comprises a plurality of elements made of a variety of materials, metals and plastics, which elements need to be assembled together, and that means that the product is quite heavy and its cost of manufacture is not negligible. Providing a suitable housing on the receptacle requires successive stamping and welding operations.
Being heavy and relatively expensive, that type of handle is therefore adapted to receptacles that are themselves relatively heavy and of superior quality, for example stainless steel pans.
Such a handle is not suitable for lightweight receptacles of low cost, such as aluminum pans, even though the advantage of compactness remains regardless of the quality and the material of the receptacle.
It is probably for this reason that cake or pie molds or tins which are often made of aluminum or light metal alloy have never benefited from having a handle, even though they would appear to be just as suitable for receiving removable handles as are pans. Such molds are therefore still being removed from ovens using an oven cloth or gloves to provide a degree of thermal insulation, but often unhygienically because they come directly into contact with the cake or the pie.
Given this state of the art, the invention proposes making a handle device suitable for various types of cooking receptacle, not exclusively lightweight receptacles, the handle device being simple, low cost, and reliable. The invention also proposes providing a receptacle suitable for receiving said handle.
The invention thus provides a cooking utensil comprising a receptacle and a removable handle adapted to penetrate via one end into a housing in the receptacle.
The utensil is characterized in that over at least a fraction of its perimeter the receptacle has a rim that projects outwards from the side wall of the receptacle with at least one handle-receiving orifice passing through the wall of said rim, and in that said end of the handle includes a top end portion defined by an abutment and adapted to be inserted downwards into said orifice until the abutment is reached, and a bottom end portion adapted to extend under said rim.
As a result, the top end portion of the handle supports the portion of the receptacle rim that is situated between the vertical wall of the receptacle and the edge of the orifice closest to said vertical wall. The edge of the receptacle is thus located between the top and bottom end portions of the handle.
In addition, said abutment is constituted by a setback between said top end portion of the handle and the remainder of the top of the handle, said top end portion extending in a plane that slopes relative to the top of the handle situated behind the abutment, so as to co-operate with the wall of the abutment to form an acute-angled V-groove.
With the rim of the receptacle lying essentially on said top end portion, said configuration makes it possible for the receptacle to be held by means of the handle in a plane that is slightly inclined as is the plane of said top end portion of the handle relative to the substantially horizontal plane of the remainder of the top end portion of the handle, so that the receptacle is held by its own weight against the abutment via the innermost edge of the reception orifice.
In a preferred embodiment, said bottom end portion of the handle extends beyond said abutment of the top end portion over a distance that is substantially equal to the distance between the inside edge of the rim to the nearest or innermost edge of the reception orifice.
A receptacle held by the handle is thus pressed via its vertical wall against the bottom end portion of the handle, which portion preferably presents an edge with concave curvature adjacent to the vertical wall of the receptacle and particularly adapted to round receptacles such as cake or pie molds or tins, but is also suitable for straight-walled receptacles such as deep cake tins. An edge with a concave curve will nevertheless provide at least two spaced-apart bearing points on the receptacle whether its vertical wall is straight or curved, thus achieving greater stability.
Thus, a cooking utensil is provided that includes a handle which can quickly be engaged with or disengaged from the receptacle without requiring a dynamic system including springs, etc.
The handle is thus advantageously made as a one-piece molding of a plastics material that withstands high temperatures, such as a polyamide.